Personal Narrative Essay: Three Open Heart Surgery

When my wife and I got married, one of the first things we wanted to do was to start a family. We always wanted to be young parents and to have a large family. We began trying to have a baby. Month after month, our disappointment grew. We were greatly disheartened with every negative pregnancy test and finally decided to see a fertility specialist. The doctor told us that there was nothing wrong with neither my wife nor I and that we needed to keep trying and stay hopeful. Four years after we initially began trying to conceive, a plus mark showed up on one of the pregnancy tests and we were overjoyed. We waited until after the first trimester to tell our friends and family. Everyone was so thrilled for us. Our elation was short-lived, however, …show more content…
The doctors gave him medication to slow down the closing of the ductus arteriosus and foramen ovale in the heart so blood could be pumped to both the lungs and the rest of his body by the right ventricle. His first open heart surgery was successful. The surgeon’s performed the Norwood Procedure which basically removed the wall separating the atrium and also attached the pulmonary trunk to the aorta. This procedure was the first of three open heart surgeries that are performed on children with HLHS. We were unable to hold our baby for the first few weeks of his life and seeing him, hooked up to all those machines, looking so helpless, broke my heart. I wished with all of my heart that I could take away the pain that he was going through, but I was just as helpless in this situation as he was. During his recovery from the first surgery, my wife and I basically lived in the hospital. We got to know the nurses and doctors extremely well. We don’t know what we would have done without them. As time went on, we got more hopeful as our baby began showing signs of improvement. However, we knew that he still had at least two more open surgeries to